


Something in the Air

by fearofsilence



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Bisexual Steve Harrington, M/M, Nancy Ships It, Sexual Content, Songfic (Sort of), Steve is Awkward, Walk the Moon, guys bein' dudes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2018-01-07
Packaged: 2019-02-19 10:21:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13121742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fearofsilence/pseuds/fearofsilence
Summary: Jonathan stands on the front stoop, pizza box in hand and the smile missing from his face. That’s not really surprising though. Jonathan doesn’t smile often. Steve just thought he’d be happier to see him, is all.“Hungry?” Jonathan asks, moving past him to set the pizza down somewhere in the kitchen.Yes, he wants to say, but not for pizza.





	1. the things that I need are right here by my side

**Author's Note:**

> I was gonna put this in with the other Stonathan Week things, but since I already posted something for Day 6 I decided against it. But I still wanted to post it, so here it is.
> 
> Title, lyrics, and inspiration from "Sidekick" by WALK THE MOON.

_We walk out the cinema_  
_About to go our separate ways and I_  
_I almost wave goodbye_  
_When you let your hair fall in your face_

 

 

It’d been Nancy’s idea. Steve didn’t necessarily think it was her best, but Nancy could be very… persuasive. She wanted him and Jonathan to be ‘friends’.

He didn’t think Byers would agree to it.

But he did.

And that’s how Steve finds himself in a dark theater with Jonathan Byers one Thursday night during winter break.

They've gone to see _The Breakfast Club_ , even though Dustin had dragged Steve to a showing the previous week. It's not like Hawkins offers a lot of variety. It occurs to him upon a second viewing – particularly with Jonathan sparse inches away – that the eldest Byers is definitely an Allison. Steve fancies himself a bit of a Bender; though, logically, he knows he’s much more of an Andrew.

And… Well, if Byers is Allison, then maybe he wouldn't mind being Andrew.

He wouldn’t admit it though. That’d be weird. So weird… _Ha_.

“So what’d you think?”

He doesn’t know why he asks. Of course Jonathan would hate the movie. Jonathan likes his horror, his cult films, his weird French movies. _The Breakfast Club_ probably nearly bored him to death.

“It was alright,” Jonathan answers, much to Steve’s surprise. “I like the message. You know, that they’re all alike, despite their differences.”

Steve is dumbstruck. Partially by the words coming out of Byers’ mouth, and partially by the way his messy dark blonde hair shades his eyes as he glances at the concrete and then back up at Steve.

“Yeah... The message,” Steve mumbles. He hears Nancy's favorite catchphrase echo in his mind.

He wants to hit himself but he refrains.

Jonathan shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans and starts to leave. “Well, bye.”

“Yeah, bye,” Steve says, raising his arm in a parting wave. Then, unthinkingly – because there’s no way he’s thinking clearly, much less at all – he calls to Jonathan’s back, “Wait!”

Jonathan turns back to him, shoulders hunched, hands still in his pockets.

“You wanna come over?” 

 

~:~

 

_Something in the air is giving me bad ideas_  
_Something in the air is giving me dangerous thoughts like:_  
_Why don't you stay at mine tonight?_

 

 

“Welcome to Casa Harrington.”

Steve grins over his shoulder. Suddenly the key gets jammed in the lock and- did Byers always stand this close to him? He swears Jonathan usually kept his distance, but now he’s _so close_. Within reaching distance. Steve can see the way the outdoor lights glint in his deep, dark eyes. He could count his eyelashes if he wanted. And is that… is that pine? Cinnamon?

And why… won’t this damn… door open?

It hits him then, just as a nervous chuckle escapes his throat and ends in a _very_ becoming and manly squeak.

She knows.

_Nancy knows._

Oh, God. She planned this whole thing.

“Take Jonathan to the movies,” she’d said. Her smile had seemed innocent enough, but now that Steve thinks about it, did she have that mischievous sparkle in her eye like she does whenever she’s up to something? “I think you two would really get along if you just spent some time together.”

_Together_.

Alone _together_.

Damn her.

Jonathan clears his throat; Steve catches himself before he jumps out of his own skin. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah! I’m fine!” He’s the opposite of fine. “Just… this key, uh, I think the lock might be busted or something.”

“Here, let me see.”

Jonathan brushes up against him. Steve holds his breath when their hands touch. He smells so good. He wonders if Byers knows how good he smells, if he’s done it on purpose, if he can feel the way Steve tenses up beside him.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

So sure. Super sure. The surest.

“Mm-hmm!”

His lungs are beginning to burn.

The door swings open with ease. Jonathan looks back at him quizzically and Steve- he must’ve killed a couple brain cells because what he does next is quite possibly the stupidest thing he’s ever done in his life. And he’s done a lot of stupid things.

He kisses him. He kisses Jonathan Byers. Just… lunges forward and plants his lips on his. Byers can hardly get his little surprised gasp out before Steve is backing him up against the still-open door and trying to stick his tongue in his mouth.

He feels hands on his shoulders. Lightly, at first, and then rougher. He thinks they might be bunched in the fabric of his coat, but he’s not sure. Then Jonathan is using that leverage to push him away, separating their mouths with a horrible wet sound that should probably make Steve cringe, but really all it does is make him want to swoop in for more.

“Whoa,” Jonathan breathes. His lips are all swollen-red and Steve suppresses a groan. _I did that_ , he thinks triumphantly.

…And then he realizes what he’s just done and his heart falls into his ass.

“Oh. Oh, God,” he says, backing away. “Oh, no. I’m sorry. I read that all wrong, oh, God, what was I thinking?”

“Steve.”

“It’s okay if you want to leave now. I understand, just… Don’t tell Nancy, okay? She’ll-”

“Steve!”

His mouth snaps closed. Jonathan is watching him, brow slightly furrowed but there’s a hint of a smirk on his lips that Steve just wants to kiss right off and- oh, Christ, why is he like this?

Jonathan, though, gives him the shock of a lifetime when he says, “It’s okay. Just… maybe take it a little slower, yeah?”

He’ll have to remember to thank Nancy later.


	2. when you are close to me I shiver

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title and lyrics from "Shiver Shiver" by WALK THE MOON.

_You leave these marks upon my neck_   
_And they're still there_   
_I know, but I still check_

 

 

He’d noticed it getting out of the shower. The mark – or marks, rather. More than one. A line of them, in fact, from his collarbone up to his ear.

He’s been examining them ever since.

Steve often spends a ridiculous amount of time staring at himself in the mirror – his hair doesn’t coif itself, after all – but this is something else. Each mark brings a memory. A memory of Jonathan pinning him to the kitchen counter. Of trading rough popcorn-flavored kisses. Of Jonathan biting at his neck, rutting against him like his life depended on it.

“I thought you wanted to take it slow,” Steve said, sunken to the floor with Jonathan atop him, boneless and heavy but not uncomfortably so.

“Sorry,” Jonathan muttered. He made a move to get up but Steve held him tight, kept him in place.

“No, it was…” Jonathan looked up through strands of sweaty hair. The vulnerability in his eyes nearly took Steve’s breath away. “… _Really_ hot.”

He didn’t think Byers had it in him, to be honest. But, oh, he did. He definitely did.

And Steve’s got the evidence to prove it.

“Fuck,” he breathes, glancing away from the mirror. He’s hard again, like every time he thinks of Jonathan’s unpracticed tongue, or his broad hands, or the weight of him pressing Steve into the kitchen tiles. He wonders if he has time to tug one out before-

_Nope_. Just as he thinks it, there’s a knock at the front door.

“Fuck,” he says again. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

He’s been poking and prodding at his hickeys – trophies, really, badges of honor – for so long his hair is practically dry and dreadfully unstyled. He has time to salvage it, but he’ll be keeping Jonathan waiting and…

Well, it’ll probably get messy again anyway, won’t it?

So instead he just runs some gel through it to tamp down the bits that tend to go rogue and hopes Jonathan won’t notice.

…Who is he kidding? Jonathan won’t care.

He rushes down the stairs so fast, he’s breathing hard by the time he reaches the bottom. But it’s not just that. He’s nervous. He’s _nervous_ about hanging out with _Jonathan Byers_ – the concept is still bizarre to him.

Jonathan stands on the front stoop, pizza box in hand and the smile missing from his face. That’s not really surprising though. Jonathan doesn’t smile often. Steve just thought he’d be happier to see him, is all.

“Hungry?” Jonathan asks, moving past him to set the pizza down somewhere in the kitchen. The kitchen where, not 24 hours earlier, they’d been panting into each other’s mouths and coming in their jeans like pre-teens.

Steve is still uncomfortably erect.

_Yes_ , he wants to say, _but not for pizza_. He reins it in though. He’s not sure what kind of suggestive comments are too much so soon after getting off with someone for the first time. After getting off with _a guy_ for the first time. The last thing he wants to do is send Jonathan running for the hills.

They haven’t talked about it. When it was all said and done, they’d picked themselves up off the floor and Jonathan had made up some excuse for leaving.

Steve’s not sure _how_ to talk about it. He’s never had an issue checking in with the girls he’s been with. But Jonathan’s not a girl. Jonathan is… Jonathan. And part of Steve wonders if he wouldn’t prefer to pretend it never happened.

He just really, really hopes he doesn’t.

As it turns out, Steve doesn’t need to check in at all. Because the next words out of Jonathan’s mouth, as soon as Steve pulls his head out of his ass and follows him to the kitchen, are, “You okay?”

It stops Steve short, makes him look down at his feet, then back up at Jonathan’s quizzical expression, and… _He’s_ the one acting weird. Steve. He’s the one hovering awkwardly in the doorway while Jonathan just strolls right in with his fucking pizza and makes himself at home in the kitchen. The kitchen Steve can’t even walk into for a glass of water without remembering the taste of Jonathan’s tongue or the broken whimper that rolled out of him as he climaxed.

“No.”

There’s an infinitesimal raise to Jonathan’s eyebrows. “No?”

“No,” Steve repeats, shaking his head. “I mean yes, I’m okay. I just… I can’t stop thinking about yesterday.”

Jonathan drops the slice of pizza he’d been reaching for and lets the box fall closed. Steve takes a step closer.

“I can’t stop thinking about it, and just… I have all these fucking hickeys on my neck and I can’t stop thinking about you. About your mouth, about- about how I just feel _alive_ when you’re next to me. Like every part of me is buzzing. It’s like… waking up from a deep sleep.”

Another step. A little thrill of victory runs through Steve when Jonathan doesn’t retreat.

“And- and maybe that sounds corny, but it’s the fucking truth,” says Steve. He’s close enough now that he could reach out and touch Jonathan. He could grab him by the buttons of his coat and pull him as close as possible if he wanted to, obvious stiffy be damned.

And God, does he want to.

So he does.

Jonathan moves easily, lets himself be manhandled like it’s exactly what he’s wanted all along. A sigh of relief escapes them both, mingling in what little space is left where Steve ends and Jonathan begins.

“God, I’m glad you said something,” Jonathan breathes. If he notices something poking him in the hip, he doesn’t react so far as Steve can tell. “I was afraid we were gonna go on like nothing happened.”

Steve laughs. That they’d both been thinking the same thing. That they both might’ve been dumb enough to act like it didn’t mean anything. That neither of them might’ve ever admitted that they wanted it to happen again.

He’s just glad his poker face isn’t as good as Byers’.

“I don’t want pizza,” murmurs Steve, still holding tight to Jonathan’s lapels.

“But-”

“It’ll be good cold,” he promises. “Right now, all I want is you in my bed.”


End file.
